Idiot's guide to Breaker Repair (for Bill)

I know a lot of you out there are weekend Electricians, so I'd like to discuss a topic that I often get questions about. That's Breaker operation. When a Breaker is in the Oh Ef Ef position, that usually means that it was put into that position for a reason. That's not to be confused with a Breaker that has tripped, and displays the red flag. A Breaker that has tripped usually indicates an overload condition, and repeated operation of the Breaker, or changing the Breaker for a larger size could lead to this problem:
If a Breaker is in the Oh Ef Ef position, and you change it to the Oh En position, you may have the unfortunate incident of electrocuting someone. Please, PLEASE don't perform this operation without proper supervision.


However, if you find yourself in the situation of having to change a breaker from the Oh Ef Ef position, to the Oh En position, just flip it up.

Today, I froze my nuts off.

There were 4 of us working on the ore bridge today. WOP-sing, Hardy Har Har, myself, and New Guy. Damn, it was cold!! Imagine standing on a metal deck, 100 ft up, with no heat and no insulation, open to the elements. I thought I was being a sissy, warming my hands at the 100 watt light bulb, until I heard the guy on the radio say "Currently in Cleveland, we're at 15 degrees." HOLY SMOKES! No wonder I couldn't feel my toes, or fingers, or nose... As the temperature rose, up to 22, I felt like taking my jacket off. Tomorrow, with a forecast of 41 degrees, I imagine I'll be comfortable in a T-shirt.

Ok, I didn't really freeze my nuts off, they're still there; just shrunken remnants of what they used to be. Like those tiny marbles one finds in the yard once in awhile when weeding.

Cooler Days

This is the November sky I'm used to seeing here in Cleveland. The two ore bridges tower over the mountains of taconite. Rising up in the back is C-6 Blast Furnace. Yeah, it's cold.

Here, Johnny-O is in the spot I was in, when I took the pictures of Peeps and Hardy Har Har in the JLG lift. It's a small crawlspace between the main gear room below, and the motor deck above. You can see the motor feed conduits coming out of their respective pull boxes on either side of the picture. Towards the bottom are the new conduits I installed that hold the cables from the hot-rail pick-ups and go to the main switchgear.
A view from the basket of the JLG. The river isn't too far away. I had to swing out over the river while turning the rig around. It was a bit weird, thinking how cold the water would be if the rig tipped over. Sometimes, my imagination takes over....

Ahh, the pullbox. Whenever construction workers work in a hard to get to area, we feel the need to write our names there. I guess it's to let other workers know just how cool we are. Or maybe it just makes us feel cool. I don't know, but my name is all over Cleveland! All of us have nicknames too...like Jimmy 1450.

We also enjoy joking around! I'm the King of the Wooooorrrrlllllldd!

As the sun sets, the moon rises. Another day comes to an end at Mittal Steel, Cleveland Works.

Ore Bridge

I've been working at the steel mill lately. Last week, I was at the No. 4 Ore Bridge, that services C-6 Blast Furnace. We're working about 100' off the ground. Now, I'm at C-5 Blast Furnace, but I'll be going back to the ore bridge tomorrow. The ore bridge moves along tracks above piles of material, usually taconite pellets. In addition to the east-west movement of the bridge, the trolley moves north-south along tracks up high on the bridge. This allows the bridge operator to gather material from a large area and dump it into hoppers to feed the furnace.
Nice view from up here! In the foreground, the crane is raising a yellow step-ladder for the iron workers. The blue structure in the background is the ore bridge next to the one we're working on. You can also see the mountains of taconite pellets that will be smelted into pig iron in the furnace.
The ore boat unloads material used to make the iron. In this case, it's unloading limestone. The ore bridge then scoops up tons of the material with the clamshell crane, trolleys to the furnace, and drops the material in hoppers to be raised to the top of the furnace and dropped in. You may recognize this ore boat from a previous post when Peeps and I were working on the bridge lighting.

Here, Peeps, and Hardy Har Har, are under the trolley feeding the old motor cables to me. They're about 80' up in the air in a lift.

The new Katie

Katie's fur is growing back in quite well. This is last Sunday's weekly bath.She's not quite the rat-dog as when I first cut her hair, but neither is she the curly fur-ball prior to that. I kinda like her like this, lean and trim.
After her bath, Tina and I took her out for a new jacket. She needed something a little warmer for the falling temperatures, but not quite as heavy as her winter coat. This is like a hoody, but for some reason, it's got pockets in the back, instead of the front. Tina suggested that I let Katie carry her own filled poop bags.